By Charlie Winter, Senior Research Fellow, ICSR and Haroro Ingram, Research Associate with the International Centre for Counterterrorism

When you think about terrorist attacks the way the Islamic State does, even blatant technical failure can become strategic success. It’s all about how shrewdly you brand an attack after the fact—and how willing the media is to buy into your narrative.

Consider what happened in the U.K. on Friday. During morning rush hour, the London Underground’s District Line was brought to a standstill after a fireball erupted on a train at Parsons Green Station. Minutes after the Metropolitan Police arrived, news broke that the incident had been caused by a bomb—crudely concealed in a bucket and placed in a supermarket shopping bag—that had failed to detonate properly. Within a couple of hours, British Prime Minister Theresa May declared the incident an attempted terrorist attack.